The present invention relates generally to wireless communications and more particularly to a method and system for virtualizing a cellular base station.
Network virtualization enables deploying customized services and protocols with diverse performance objectives in isolated slices on the same-shared physical network. Recently, virtualization of wireless network resources has started receiving increased focus. At least four different deployment scenarios benefit from effectively virtualizing wireless resources. Depicted in FIG. 1 and discussed below are four different deployment scenarios that benefit from effectively virtualizing wireless resources: Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) 101, FIG. 1 (a); Corporate Bundle Plans 101, FIG. 1 (a); Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) 102, FIG. 1 (b); and Services with Leased Networks (SLN) 103, FIG. 1 (c).
Mobile virtual network operators are emerging as strong players in the mobile network market to provide enhanced services such as video telephony, live streaming and interactive games (along with traditional voice services) to focused customers. This model is a win-win situation for both MVNOs and mobile network operators MNOs, since MVNOs help MNOs attract and retain a greater number of customers.
With corporate bundle plans, as revenue from voice services decreases rapidly, data services are receiving increased focus from WiMAX, 3G and LTE network operators. Already, more sophisticated data plans for revenue generation on 3G networks have emerged, and are constantly evolving. Many of these sophisticated data plans include corporate bundle plans where the bandwidth can be shared across a group of employees of a corporation.
Regarding global environment for network innovations GENI, virtualization can help MNOs and researchers by isolating wireless resources, and providing a way to deploy and test innovative ideas, while running operational networks. This provides a win-win situation for both network providers and researchers.
For services with leased networks SLNs, in the future, we envision that service providers would be increasingly interested in paying the network operators on behalf of the users to enhance users' quality of experience. For example, one can envision a maps service provider paying a network operator to reserve certain amount of bandwidth on base stations near highways for speeding up user requests.
Currently, there are no teachings on effective resource virtualization of cellular wireless base stations. Virtualization to date has focuses on 802.11 (Wi-Fi) technologies that are not applicable to cellular technologies. In a related domain, wired network virtualizations have been done in several ways, but their solutions do not fit wireless networks due to the inherent wireless domain characteristics such as channel fluctuations and capacity variations. Existing cellular base stations supporting virtual network operators (MVNOs) do not provide any isolation across different operators. They just allow the users of all the operators to access the resources uniformly.
Accordingly, there is a need for network virtualization that provides for effective virtualization of cellular base stations in technologies such as WiMAX and LTE.